A few quick updates
Travel - My trip back to the States went well. Visited with family, participated in my mandatory on-campus BIO lab, and did a little shopping. Watched the Transformers movie on DVD with my brother. It was okay, but it was a bit mature for the market for which they design the toys. Overall, I still prefer the cartoons.
Scary robot
Slashdot referred me to this YouTube video on Boston Dynamics' "Big Dog" robot. All I can say is... creepy. If I encountered that thing alone, particularly in the woods portion of the video, I might freak out a bit. Just a bit. :-)
Here's the video:
Weather update
Perhaps I'll post more about this later, but yesterday was a bit rough. I went to the Consulate in the morning to take an exam. That went fine, but when I left to catch my bus home I found that the pollution level had increased dramatically. Buildings less than 100 yards away were blurred. The hill that divides Monterrey from San Pedro, Loma Larga, was nearly invisible at a distance of maybe half a mile. You could smell and taste the pollution. The wind had picked up a little and it was gusting grit and dust everywhere. Altogether an unpleasant day was had by all. After catching my bus home, I did have one small high point. Walking from the bus stop to the house, I heard a distinctive tsk-tsk-tsk noise I've come to know well: hummingbird. I looked up and a small, dark green hummer with a bright red bill was perched in a tree overhead, looking decidedly unhappy over the increasing winds. Trash, leaves, and trashcans were blowing down my street. I managed to get our trashcan out to the curb just a few minutes before the trash truck picked up, and then quickly grabbed the empty can before it blew away.
We lost power briefly several times over the next two hours, with numerous flickers and dimmings, and then lost power completely around 1:30 PM. Power was restored about six hours later. Anyone know how long food is good in a refrigerator/freezer if the door is left closed? Guess I'll Scroogle it. Anyway, once Emily arrived home (had to manually open and shut the garage doors) we set about finding candles and flashlights. We baked a frozen pizza and ate it by candlelight.
As of 9 AM this morning, our cable TV still isn't working. That means we missed Jericho last night, as well as the opportunity to see if the Warner Channel carried the new episode of Big Bang Theory which we missed on Monday (Darn the revised Daylight Saving schedule! We're still an hour behind!).
With internet and power back and stable, I have lots of school work to finish (it's about mid-term time). Back to the salt mines.
About Me
- Trailing Male
- I worked for about 10 years in the IT field in the Northern Virginia region and lived in Manassas for about 11 years. My wife, Emily, achieved her long-time (and hard-fought) dream and started with the US Foreign Service in 2006. Our first posting was in Monterrey, Mexico, where we spent two years. As soon as I knew where we were headed and when I could get Spanish training, I gave notice and quit my job. After two years in Mexico, we spent a while back in the US learning Albanian for our current post in Tirana. I am currently not employed and have resumed my college studies (I WILL finish a degree one of these days!). I’ve taking up blogging to keep friends and relatives up to date. My blog is also an outlet to express the pleasures and frustrations associated with living abroad on behalf of the US government. My long-term goal is to hone my writing skills to the point where I can earn a living as an author and editor. In the meantime, I am a trailing male – the male spouse of a female Foreign Service Officer, a student, and, happily, a kept man.
Subscribe To
Posts
Comments
1 comment:
I think 6 hours without power the stuff in the fridge is probably ok. When we lost power overnight back during the east coast blackout we threw everything away the next day, but that was something like 16 hours without power.
Post a Comment